Kliges'chee Tsunami
These are notes for back ground for a story arc of ST-OM. Meta The Kliges'chee were created, out of whole cloth by Dennis Washburn in 1992 (I think, he may have been chewing the idea over longer than that.) They were intended to fill the following dramatic roles - *''Scary Monsters'' - They were intended to be alien, ugly, frightening and particularly unsympathetic. *''Bug Eyed Monsters'' - Lamp Shaded in ST-OM in this passage - The Kliges'chee came on screen and I stared for a moment. It would take some work to imagine a creature more ugly. He had about a dozen eyes. Each was different. Some were multifaceted insectoid eyes. Some were bulging sacks of goo that pulsated. Some were almost human. They were the worst, a piece of normalcy transplanted into something horrible. *Dennis and I had recently played a Board Game called "Bug Eyed Monsters - They Want Our Women!" A Tactical game - one player takes the role of lacivious BEMs, the other player takes on the role of Plucky towns people defending their homes and women folk. Move pieces across the board in turns, perform actions. Pick-up trucks and shotguns agains hover-platforms and rayguns, tongue in cheek references to the culture of the day. The Browns couldn't warn their neighbors of the invaders - they were known to be Democrats so the right thinking people of the town wouldn't believe them. I recall Dennis and I looking avidly for a clarification. Did this rule affect the Brown's Dog? The influence of this game on thee Kliges'chee arc has not beeen explored in detail and isn't that important. *''A Threat to the Concept of Individuality'' - Not only are the Kliges'chee repulsive and invasive, their nature is ideologically offensive. They are perfect communists. Once assimilated a drone can no more behave selfishly than a cell in you liver can. *''Big'' - The Kliges'chee were intended to threaten the Federation and all around it. No Amount or combination of tactical genius, huge phaser cannon, bravery, honor or testosterone (estrogen, Insert Sexual power hormone as a metaphor for competence here) - will suffice. Epic battless of blood, fire and bravery were NOT the solution to the Kliges'chee question. *''The Wizards'' - The Free Kliges'chee were encountered in ST-OM Episode 12. In exile in and supporting the Zantree Alliance, these renegade Kliges'chee had the tool. *''The Tool'' - Coincidentally, a bio-weapon. It would exterminate the Kliges'chee. Utterly. It was far more effective than the weapon Hailey winds up Using in ST-OM Free Fallin'. *''The Question'' - In order to save the Federation, would Hailey commit genocide? Not an attemmpt to kill enough Kliges'chee Individuals (as such) to build an earth sized planet out of, but true - the-only-ones-you-see-are-in-the-Museum, Sabertooth tiger and Mammoth style extinction. What went wrong? By being clueless and missing several hints incribed onto anvils and dropped onto my head, I (Real-Jay, the Player and writer of ST-OM) had Hailey and the Discovery drive right past the turn-off that lead to that question. I avoided the enntire resolution to the meta-plot and that end of the Campaign. It was like Frodo hocking the One Ring and driving off to Vegas for a Vacation. I missed the point so utterly that to this day, I can't recreate where the turn-off was. This left ST-OM with a big, big problem. An unstoppable horde of monsters at the door step of known space ... and no way to stop them. I looked at Denniss and said "You boned my Trek Setting? What do I do now?" Dennis shrugged "Whatever you want." What I invented I dimly percieved that the Kliges'chee's unstoppableness was part of their appeal. It was part of the tennsion tey built up. While I can be quite wry about people who treat STar Trek as a Combat Simulation, I am still a boy. I find space battles, fire, blood, bravery, courage and honor and all the "Bad ass" stuff to be cooool. While I want to put my characters in the position of addressing ethical questions and solving problems, I also wwant them to swash their buckles and swing on ropes. Trek needs to MOVE and to be fun and cool, as well as being thoughtful and brain-chewy. War stories are good places to swash-buckle and get that action fix. Writer Courage Equals Killing Main Characters At the time I subscribed to this notion. so I decided to combine "War is hell on Star Trek Chaaracters", for firey explosions and action with Smearing the Klingon Empire - Killing the Empire would show I wasn't afraid to really screw with the setting. But how to stop the Kliges'chee from steam-rolling everyone? How to prevent the answer to Dennis' question being - letting the Kliges'chee steam roll and squash knownn space by default? At the time I didn't know the plot. After I'd cluelessly obviated a plot Dennis was setting on the mantlepiece for two years, He lost interest in ST-OM. In fact it wwas only in 2007 when I described the seection I was developing at that time, when Dennnis became excited and game me a really cool idea. So when I went to Dennniss to ask for suggestions about unwedging ST-OM from thee mess we'd left it in - in 1995 and 1996, he just wasn't that interested and claimed not to remember anything. So I had to make it up on my own. Jay recreates the Weapon So I wondered how one might stop a stupendous horde of Fuzzy-Wuzzies? I came to the idea of a bio-weapon. It neutralizes the Kliges'chee without giving the Federation a super weapon to use on other folks. Then as I thought about it, the plot of ST-OM Free Fallin' came to me. Free Fallin' Unlike Dennis version of the plot, which posed an ethical question in real time - with billions, if not trillions of lives on the line, My plot explored themes of judgement, stress, emotional distress and most of all failure. The one monster, the one enemy, the one challenge we will never see James T. Kirk in any incarnation face is that of failure. In TOS-Omega Glory and TOS-Doomsday Machine, we see men like Kirk. Fellow Starship Captains. They encountered failure and it ruined them. Commmodore Decker almost drove the Enterprise to Destruction. (The Battle against the Doomsday Machine maps out to the climax of Moby Dick, pretty well.) Captain Tracey committs a horrifying act of mass mmurder. Hailey is stressed. Stress is how you feel when you really want something and you fear, badly, that yoou won't get it. Hailey the Discovery crew fear that they will Die. They want to live. There's some stress. Hailey becomes emotionally delicate and makes a horrible think-o. He equates his succeess and the success of the USS Discovery with "making a contribution" in the war. If he must Die, Hailey feels that dying without doing dammage to the Kliges'chee at least the quivalent of any other ship in the line of battle makes him a failure. Hailey feels that he lacks power to accomplish his goal and fears being a failure. He, himself is not aware of this as the story progresses. Stress and fatigue, along with a horribly timed case of bad attitude management puts Hailey in the position of being driven by emotions he cannot articulate, even to himself. So, driven to try and meet a yardstick measurement that is utterly irrelvant to the rest of the situation, fear of dying, fear of dying a failure and resentment against the feeling of being powerless drive Hailey's decision. he suspects he's having a bad idea. On some level it doees not feel right. But he is caught between conscience and fear/anger. And is so out-of-Whack that he cannot eveen see it. He has no seperation from or perspective on how Jay Feels. This is a personal story for me. This describes a lot of my own personal failures. How Hailey faces this, deals with it, and moves on is important to me. Maybe I am establishing a sort of idealized bennch mark of my own for transcending failure. Tying It Up So we see the Tsunami as a fuzzy-wuzzy attack that affects the whole game world. All of known space against the Kliges'chee. Mighty Battles. Bravery. Courage. Cleverness. Honor. War is hell on Star Trek Characters, but makes them look bad-ass and cool. Then Hailey activates the Deus Ex-Machina unwittingly, and in a stupendous act of violence ends the Tsunami and takes the Kliges'chee out of The Game. Commentary ST-OM Has been hanging up on this for a long, long time. As it turns out, one Siege at Helm's Deep is plenty. And even so, small doses are good. So I have this masssive thing that acts likee a Tsunami on ST-OM - but it's boring to write about. I wrote some pieces. I hit some good emotional tones. But the whole thing is boring. I have been playing with the idea of mixing the exposition below, in bite-sized chunks with vignettes and inserts, showing thee wwar from variouss vieews. To me It feels badly like telliing and not showing - beecause it is On the other hand, I want the Kliges'chee Tsunami off my plate. It has been a stone around my neck and major obstacle in the path of making progress with ST-OM for a long time. Okay, some ground work Before the Kliges'chee Tsunami the Klingons are engaged in a war with the Cardassians. The Cardassians are totalitarian assholes and so no one in the Federation can rouse lots of sympathy when the Klingons decide that the Cardassians are the perfect partners with whom to gain glory in battle The Romulans twirl their moustaches and say "nyahh, ha haaa." they sign a treaty with the Cardassian Union, supplying just enough material and technology to allow the Cardassians to bleed the Klingons white. An ideal solution in the Romulan Mind is the Cardassian union destroyed and the Klingon empire on it's knees from a war just a touch too tough. Tsunami - The Kliges'chee War The Kliges'chee and their War Machine Everyone knows that the Kliges'chee are amorphous alien forms native to a liquid methane environment. Everyone thinks they know that the Kliges'chee hated all sentient life forms native to class M environments. However this is not true. The Kliges'chee had several different client races, many of which were native to class M environments. The Kliges'chee had a specific term for the people they hated, "Rihannsu" the name of a particular Romulan ethnic background. What it meant when the Kliges'chee said it was "Independent minded being" which is to say, a being who was not a member of mass mind, or a hive mind. Although why is not clearly understood, it is plain that the Kliges'chee hated all independently sentient humanoids to a fanatic degree. The Kliges'chee commonly ate starship crews from opposing starships and natives of dominated planets. The reasoning behind this is not clear. It would be the same as if a human or a Vulcan to a big, thirsty gulp of hot lava right out of a volcano. Severe injury or death would certainly result. The Kliges'chee took thousands of victims, maybe even millions, but a cold, practical consideration of this reveals that there is no way they could have taken enough to keep themselves fed for long. And if they could stretch their cannibalistic supplies using replicators, why did they need live humanoids and others to begin with? This question has not been answered and probably won't be for some time, however exploration and scientific investigation continues. The Kliges'chee were so fanatic about not tolerating "Rihannsu" presence in their space that they used an alien artifact of terrible power to alter their client races into mass minds such as themselves. Very little is known about these races. The one example known, Mister Prindal is more than a year's travel by starship away, and is quite hostile to the Federation. Mister Prindal refuses to have any more to do with 'Rihannsu' and is at best coldly polite to people from the Federation. The Kliges'chee mass mind was so well integrated that individuals incorporated into it simply ceased to exist effectively. The way they moved and thought was described as "The way your nervous system thinks together when you raise your arm" Somehow, across light centuries of distance and at varying warp speed, this telepathic union stayed in effect, in real time. In the Kliges'chee war Kliges'chee fleets are often spoken of, numbered and described. But each of these fleets was a single body, with it's comptroller as its mind. No one is certain how many for certain but it's fair to say that Known Space fought off eight to twelve individuals spread out over tens of thousands of starships. Not only were the Kliges'chee Comptrollers somehow capable of coordinating this, but they were also ingenious tacticians, and frighteningly good copiers and adapters of technology. The Kliges'chee Empire was huge. It was bigger than the rest of known space put together. It contained millions of systems. Many of these were exploited thoroughly. From this massive empire the Kliges'chee were able to support a war fleet of stunning size. This massive fleet was the chief Kliges'chee advantage. They simply overwhelmed most opposition. The basic morphology of the Kliges'chee ships was consistent. They used a duranium alloy similar in many respects to Romulan material. The surface of a native built Kliges'chee ship was textured with a surface that looked somewhat like a walnut. This allowed the hull itself to act both as a heat radiator and as a sensor antenna. The ship looked like a walnut stretched on it long axis, narrow end forward. Two more stretched out walnuts about 1/3 the size of the main body were on either side of the rear of the Kliges'chee ship, about 15 degrees off the centerline of the ship. These are the warp drive nacelles. These also house the secondary disruptor cannon. The layout of the type A scout and the type B cruiser are identical. Intelligence analysts can tell the difference between one and the other in pictures by subtle details, the relative size of the texture, and certain functional details of the surface. The type A scout is 150 meters long. This ship seems to be intended to have good speed and duration. It is an interdiction and light combat ship. The Type B cruiser is larger at 200 meters and commensurately more heavily armed and shielded. The headquarters ship of the Kliges'chee is called the Comptroller's ship. It is a sphere nearly 1000 meters across with three spheres attached, each 250 meters across. This ship is as heavily armed and defended as an entire Kliges'chee fleet. It acts as a mobile repair dock and strong hold. From it, a Comptroller acts as the brains for an entire fleet of Kliges'chee as though they were his own body. The Kliges'chee also had a plethora of support and transport ships. Their own production models obviously owed a lot to the basic cruiser and scout design and used several of the same components. The Kliges'chee had some captured Prize ships in their fleet, but not enough to be statistically significant. A Kliges'chee ship is easy to spot on sensors. Its life support must keep its temperature at -250 Fahrenheit. The Kliges'chee Type A Scout and Type B cruiser were designed around two main tactics and two main strike weapons. The main strike weapon encountered mostly in ship-to-ship combat was the shield disruptor. This weapon attacked the defensive shields of a target ship, eliminating them or greatly weakening them. Then the Kliges'chee unit would close with its defenseless prey and use its secondary offensive/defensive disruptors to accurately destroy the target's engines and weapons. Then the Kliges'chee ships would beam the crew off and eat them. The second main strike weapon was huge axially mounted disruptor cannon. The Kliges'chee ships could channel then entire output of their power core through this disruptor cannon. No ship or base could withstand this for long. Teams of Kliges'chee would maneuver to force an enemy into position for a shot from an axial cannon. Cities and Space stations were especially vulnerable to this weapon. Its main purpose was to exterminate planetary defenses and render a planet defenseless. The Kliges'chee ships were equipped with a stealth suite. A precursor to the cloaking device, it did not render the Kliges'chee ships invisible, but made them appear tiny. A Kliges'chee type be cruiser could appear to be the size of a "BB" with a commensurately small power signature. This made the Kliges'chee impossible to track at long range and difficult to track at medium ranges. Once this was known it was not terribly effective at close range. Later on in the war, Type C cruisers and Type D scouts appeared. These were ships with radically upgraded technology, largely stolen from the Klingons and the Zantree, as well as a redesign to enhance their ability to fight outside of their main attack pattern. These ships were an ugly surprise to the allies, although they appeared too late to affect the outcome of the war. The Kliges'chee had one other weapon that affected the outcome of the war far more than any other. They were victims of Romulan use of the "Sunseed" technology which provoked stellar activity in stars, created Ion storms and heavy subspace interference. Once the Kliges'chee saw this technology in action, they began work to copy it. The Kliges'chee and the Romulans - In 2311 the Romulans encountered the Kliges'chee. The meeting was not a happy one. The Kliges'chee attacked at once, but were unable to martial the forces to overwhelm the Romulans. The Romulans worked feverishly to build up their forces and tactics to cope with the Kliges'chee. For almost the next 60 years the Kliges'chee and the Romulans fought a series of campaigns against each other. The Romulans had no idea how big their opponent was. They seemed to attack in wave after unending wave. The Kliges'chee, distracted by other conquests and then a civil war seemed to constantly underestimate the ability of the Romulans to fight. The Kliges'chee also seemed to think that it was only a matter of time and continuing effort before the Romulan Empire fell. The Kliges'chee Civil War Kliges'chee drones in childhood and adolescence are independent minded creatures not part of a Comptroller's body of control. Their brains have certain physiological switches that, once activated by a Comptroller subsume the individual drone so thoroughly that recovery is not possible. In the 2350's a group of Adolescent drones on a nursery world discovered this unpleasant fate early, and set out to claim their freedom. They burned out the telepathic organs in their brains that left them patsies to Comptrollers, highjacked a sizable Kliges'chee fleet and escaped Kliges'chee space after a sizable campaign against their putative masters. The Free Kliges'chee escaped to a small alliance on the fringes of Kliges'chee space, called the Zantree alliance. There the Free Kliges'chee made common cause with the Zantree Alliance and made their stand. The Free Kliges'chee escaped with copies of the Kliges'chee Shield Disruptor. Working with Zantree Scientists they created a Shield Protector that neutralized the effects of the Kliges'chee shield disruptor weapon. The Zantree The Zantree Alliance started out with five inhabited worlds and then grew to over 20 with colonies of the original founders as the main members. The Zantree Alliance was a much less formal and regulated affair than the Federation, but similar in spirit, however, all too soon the Zantree were discovered by the Kliges'chee. The Kliges'chee responded to the contact with a casual, almost desultory conquest fleet. It would have simply over whelmed the Zantree defenses if not for the sudden appearance of the Free Kliges'chee. The Federation had brief contacts with the Zantree, and exchanged Photon torpedo technology to the Zantree in exchange for the Shield Disruptor and Shield Protector Technologies. After 2372, this technology was retrofitted to all Federation Starships, rendering them immune to the shield disruptor The Zantree were out numbered but fought bravely. Although advised to seek alliance with the Klingons, the Zantree refused, not wishing to be conquered by the Klingons any more than by the Kliges'chee. In the end, the Zantree campaign amounted to a delay, a roadblock for the Kliges'chee long term plan, which was to take down the Romulan Empire for once and all. The Kliges'chee simply moved a much larger fleet into the area, out flanked the Zantree and crushed them inexorably. All Zantree starships were destroyed. Poong's world, the center of stiffest resistances was bombarded unit no longer class M. Approximately 150,000 Poong individuals survived on other Zantree worlds. The other four Zantree core worlds suffered the fate of every world subjugated by the Kliges'chee. Their space infrastructure was destroyed utterly, and their cities bombarded from orbit. The casualties were in the tens of millions and the cultures of the Zantree worlds and their colonies were rendered incapable of resisting the Kliges'chee. Then the Kliges'chee started a build up to the Tsunami The Klingon/Zantree Frontier The area of Klingon Space nearest to the Zantree was controlled by General Kalak. His power base was relatively small and he was not popular. This was the area of Klingon space almost opposite the Federation, and so many old Klingon attitudes held sway. Theses included the one that any compromise with the Federation amounted to surrender and treason. And the attitude that Klingons represent the master race should legitimately conquer all other races. General Kalak was a member of Gowron's circle, and a favorite of Kahless II, the cloned Emperor. To attack him would draw unwanted reprisals. However this did not keep nearby rivals and enemies of Kalak from sniping at his ships and people and doing their best to damage and weaken his holdings. Kalak accepted a handful of Zantree Alliance Refugees and starships, and attempted to probe space out past the Klingon Frontier. In the High council, Kalak's warnings of possible hostilities from the Kliges'chee were decried as fantastic rumor mongering, or the ravings of a madman, compromised by aliens. Gowron, The Chancellor of the Empire was working hard to head off an impending Klingon civil war between the "Real Klingon" and "New Klingon" Factions in the Empire. He deflected the aggression towards the Cardassian Union, and a nice, well planned and well managed war was brewing up along the Klingon/Cardassian border. He had no time to waste with a messy, unplanned, possibly overblown menace from the far hinterlands. Gowron's messages to Kalak were supportive, but in terms of actual money, men and materiel, Gowron's support was a pittance. The Tsunami Enters Klingon Space When the Kliges'chee had built up a fleet of what they considered adequate size they attacked. This was led off by units which flew from Star to Star utilizing the stolen sunseed technology to provoke a wave of stellar activity. Long range communications and sensors were disrupted. Inside this wave, huge Kliges'chee fleets moved in and smashed the border houses. The Kliges'chee didn't need long range subspace communications to coordinate their fleets. Almost invariably Klingon Lords would withdraw their forces into defensive positions, seeking not only to understand what was happening but also to shield themselves from treachery by other Klingon Lords. Within days, the Klingon Frontier was fragmented, isolated, and set up into easily picked of pockets. The Kliges'chee spent the next eight weeks consolidating their hold on this area and picking off all resistance. Sheer numbers of Kliges'chee doomed Klingon resistance. Many fleets could not assemble and fight effectively and so were picked off piecemeal. Inhabited Klingon words suffered the fate now known to be the Kliges'chee standard operating procedure. They would destroy all space infrastructure, then close into obit and destroy all ground based defenses, using overwhelming force. Then all cities above a threshold size would be bombarded, blasted into apocalyptic rubble. Then the Kliges'chee fleet informed the surviving Klingons that they had been defeated and occupied. That any further acts of resistance would result in all life on their world being exterminated. Then, leaving behind perhaps a few pickets or even surveillance probes, the Kliges'chee fleet would move on. The leading edge of the attack wave kept moving into Klingon Space. Probing fleets and information gathering Gowron and the High Council immediately knew something was wrong, but did not properly identify it. They felt it could be some sort of galactic weather pattern. Gowron sent scouts into the advancing wave of subspace interference, and grew steadily more disquieted as they all failed to return. Then Gowron detailed rearward fleets to assemble and begin to probe the area. These fleets were reserves for the Cardassian Campaigns (Still going strong at this time) , places of honor for old admirals to serve out their twilight years. In succession, Gowron assembled and then sent five fleets, each larger than the last. After each was sent he waited impatiently for news. As the third fleet was being assembled, a Federation battlegroup arrived at Qo'onoS in a show of support. They were largely ignored, as Gowron couldn't even take the time to be insulted. The fifth emergency response fleet This fleet with dozens of cruisers, a couple of heavy battleships and nearly 50 scouts was drawn into a trap at Zargot Minor, however several of the scout ships had orders to cloak if attacked and observe the battle, and then escape to carry news Beset by an attack group of 1000 Kliges'chee ships, the Fleet fought bravely and well, dishing out massive damage, but was still overwhelmed. The Kliges'chee used insidiously clever tactics and when the time suited them, they attacked fiercely with no fear of death or destruction. One of the Klingon Battleships, the Kang, was destroyed when three Kliges'chee ships kamikazed him. The surviving scouts had to thread a wall of enemy ships and out race the sunseeders to arrive at Qo'noS with the dire news that the Empire was under massive attack. A Few of them succeeded. As the wave moved into the interior of the Klingon Empire the tactic was the same. Cut off communication and then overwhelm static defenses with large numbers of ships. Some defenses fought for hours against the onslaught, but the sheer weight of numbers got them. The Kliges'chee wave had nearly a million ships in it. The Five Victories Gowron quickly recalled all units and prepared for a counter attack against the enemy. He'd lost valuable time territory and ships being unwilling to face that he was now fighting a two front war, He resolved to make up for his indecision by aggressively counter attacking and taking the fight back to the enemy. The Federation's offers of help, negotiation and support were ignored. The pride of the Empire had been stung by the Federation's disapproval of the Cardassian Conflict. Gowron also had to prove he could hold his empire without the aid of the Federation. Admiral Collins and his Battle group stayed in orbit around Qo'noS. Gowron hand picked the generals who led the attack. He couldn't gather information about enemy fleet movements and locations. The sunseed wave of subspace disruption dictated that. But he knew that the Kliges'chee were taking Klingon Planets. General Tazol lead the first counter attack to the planet Gryssbee, a heavily populated Klingon industrial world. He moved his fleet into Kliges'chee held space, and using an intricately designed attack plan, executed from cloaked positions deep inside the Gryssbee system, his fleet successfully surprised and exterminated the Kliges'chee pickets that were left to hold that world. They were confronted with tens of thousands of injured, millions of homeless, a world with ruined infrastructure and the beginnings of social breakdown, mass starvation and chaos. Tazol did his best to reimpose Klingon rule on Gryssbee, and was on the verge of success, when the Kliges'chee counter attacked with 3000 ships. Tazol was in a horrible position. He had to stay near the planet to try and defend it from Kliges'chee reprisal, but this limited his fleet's ability to move. Although the Klingons of Tazol's fleet fought to the bitter end, the numbers and the situation were against them. Tazol's fleet was destroyed to the last ship that stood and fought. Few of those attempting to retreat made it out either. Then the Kliges'chee powered a communication signal through their own interference and displayed pictures of what happened next. Gryssbee was exterminated. Kliges'chee ships simply fired their heavy cannon into it over and over and over until the surface of the world was a charred husk and not one living thing remained. Four more fleets set out to liberate Klingon Worlds. Kalast, Mekh'Dolam, Grandel, Nagan 3 and Mondolok. All heavily populated worlds. All briefly liberated by massive Klingon Fleets, All exterminated when the Kliges'chee assembled enough force to counter attack. The Klingon Interior Gowron released his remaining ships into hunter killer packs, and sent them to try and stall the Kliges'chee advance through hit and run raids, rear echelon attacks similar non linear warfare. The Klingon fleet was suffering badly from its losses and losses of morale. This new tactic adopted by Gowron avoided the possibility of Klingon Civilians being massacred in reprisals, but it also split the strength of the Klingon fleet up. They attacked by surprise in a non linear fashion. The Kliges'chee wave was finally slowed, But not enough. At each world, every possible Klingon ship would turn out for its defense. And at Each world the Kliges'chee simply swamped the system in starships, overwhelming the defenders. The Kliges'chee took horrifying casualties, but seemed not to care. If a 1000 ship formation was reduced to 5 ships, they'd still attack as aggressively as if they were still 1000. When the huge Kliges'chee strike began forming to attack Qo'onoS everyone knew it. Admiral Collins at Qo'onoS urged Gowron and Kahless to call on their allies for help. Kahless was willing, but Gowron knew that if he couldn't hold the Klingon homeworld, then he'd never hold anything again. Once again every possible ship turned out for the defense of the home world. Defenses along the Romulan, Cardassian and Federation Borders were weakened or stripped entirely. What was the Federation doing during all this? Some analysts upon reading the information brought back by the USS Harrier, the USS Discovery and others about he Kliges'chee felt that the Federation was facing a terrible new threat. They were in the minority, but they strongly urged Starfleet and the Federation to be wary of another event like Wolf 359 Although most analysts and thinkers in Starfleet and the Federation found the idea of a massed Kliges'chee attack unlikely and dubious at best, President Jaresh Inyo was under political pressure. Set backs by the Maquis, Klingon Adventurism, and in foreign policy led political opponents to criticize him as being soft in a hard, cold universe. Jaresh-Inyo okayed a "military preparedness" program which mainly featured Starships being stuck together in groups and issued training exercises. As the wave of subspace interference appeared and began to crawl over the Klingon Empire. The Federation Starfleet went on Alert. When the fact of the war was revealed, then assistant chief of operations Jean Luc Picard was given theater command of the Klingon Border region. He rushed out in his flag ship the Enterprise-E and took command, arranging Federation ships in the area into battle groups and started gathering material. Picard analyzed his available forces and was disappointed. Starfleet was divided into two groups, roughly. New ships and old ships. New ships were ones built since the 2340's which had their warp drives upgraded. Older ships, notably the ubiquitous Miranda class and the robust Excelsior class didn't have engine upgrades and weren't liable to. To take an old ship and build new nacelles, warp cores, computer systems, tactical systems and sensor systems, to fit them, you'd have spent 80% of the resources necessary for building a new ship, but you'd still have the limitations of the old hull to work around. The older ships were not cost effective to upgrade. Picard realized that high warp speed was one of the greatest strategic and tactical advantages of the Federation fleet. So he elected to capitalize on it. New ships would form the basis of the Federation's anti-Kliges'chee campaign. The older ships were arrayed for a defense in depth. Picard hoped this would never come. The slower Federation ships were equal in speed to the Kliges'chee ships and so could not hope to escape a battle going against them. Now if only the Klingons would allow the Federation to help! The Fall of Qo'onoS ---- From the Memoirs of Jay P Hailey, Captain of the Discovery - Kahless the Second Sat in the Command chair of the Negh'Var, a monstrous Klingon Battleship and shouted at us from a thousand light years away. "Qo'noS Falls, but as long as there are still Klingons fighting, As long as there is any hope at all, the Empire lives! I call now on anyone with Klingon blood or a Klingon heart! All discommodation, all dishonors are set aside. Come take up arms and fight, fight like Klingons!!" There were fires. The bridge of the Negh'Var was smoky. We were receiving a data channel and although at that distance it was pretty badly degraded, we could see two things. First, we could see that the Negh'Var was crippled. He'd taken several horrifying wounds that would have splattered a lesser ship long before. Still The Klingon battleship reached out swatted Kliges'chee ships with single blows. We could see that the Negh'Var had an honor guard bound for Sto-vo-kor with weapons blazing and a howl unheard of in galactic history as I knew it. In and among them we could even see a Federation Defiant class gun boat, somehow, fighting like mad in a hopeless defense. '' ''Secondly we could see that the fight was indeed hopeless. There were still 250 Kliges'chee ships that the Negh'Var could see and less than 15 Klingons units fighting. The big Klingon Starbases and defense installations were scrap. There was a solid haze of Plasma and metallic debris in Qo'noS orbit. We could see Qo'onoS burning. Every so often one of the huge ground based defense cannons would reach out and claim a victim. Then several Kliges'chee would gang up and destroy it with alpha strikes from their axial guns. They weren't being careful about it. The shock waves reached for kilometers across the surface of the planet and fire storms raged in their wakes. '' ''Millions of Klingons were going down fighting. '' ''"What..." I choked. "What is the time stamp on this?" '' ''"A week ago, Sir." Lucas McCoy told me. "They must have had their whole comm-net tied together to punch a signal this far." '' ''"A week..." '' ''Gowron in the back ground of the Negh'Var's bridge yelled something I found unintelligible. '' ''Kahless turned back to us. "Never forget! Never surrender! Never give up hope! While one Klingon stays true and continues the fight, we are still KLINGONS!!!" ' Kahless began to sing the Klingon battle anthem. He had more enthusiasm than talent. He made it a couple of verses in before the scans switched to an exterior view of the Negh'Var brewing up and exploding. '' ''"How many Klingon civilians are on Qo'noS?" I asked. '' ''"About two billion." Kamaline answered quietly "According to our most recent records." '' ''For twenty minutes the Klingons kept the scanners on and the system broadcasting loudly enough for the Discovery to see the final ships fall, and the last of the ground defenses overwhelmed, and casualties in the hundreds of millions. The signal grew progressively weaker during the assault finally degrading to the point of static. The Kliges'chee assault never slowed down. '' ''I sat there and watched the screen in horror for a long, long time. I thought of all the history, All the people, The Hall of Heroes, The Klingon Space flight museum, All the Klingon Operas that I honestly couldn't tell apart. Unbidden the thought came to me that there was no such thing any more as raw Gahk, anymore. I murdered it in its crib. '' ''We had just seen two billion people murdered in the coldest blood. I tried to wrap my head around it. '' ''That was how we discovered that the Kliges'chee war was on and that we were in a fight with the Kliges'chee. '' ---- It is noted in the Klingon history that Admiral Collins and his Battle group joined the Klingon units in defense of the home world and fell, never seeking to retreat or surrender. The Kliges'chee didn't wait for a counter attack. As soon as all defenses were destroyed, they killed Qo'onoS. Perhaps the Kliges'chee knew this world was the heart of the empire. General Martok was the last of Gowron's favorites. Having been injured earlier that year fighting the Cardassians, he was not in line to command a fleet. But Gowron put Martok in Charge of establishing a Continuity of Government force. For a while, Martok and his people actually lost the Heir to the throne, Kahless II's daughter. She turned up okay, though, having fallen in with group of refugees that made it into the Federation. Martok set up a new Klingon Provisional Government on the old Klingon Colony world of Klinzai. After the fall of Qo'onoS, Martok requested Federation aid. Irregular forces and The Line In old Klingon Starbases that had been set up for defense against the Federation, Federation battle groups and irregular forces now arrived to join the battle against the Kliges'chee. The Kliges'chee stopped their advance. This was a deliberate move. They weren't so damaged as to be unable to press the attack. Within 7 months the Kliges'chee overwhelmed 2/3rds of Klingon space Klingon refuges swarmed what was left of the empire and the Federation border. Admiral Picard, relying on the two advantages he had set his battle groups to conduct hit and run raids. A war of attrition seemed like the wrong fight to fight against the Kliges'chee. But since Federation warp drives were so much faster than the Kliges'chee, the Federation battle groups could pick and choose their time of engagement. They took tactical initiative and largely held it. To try and balance out this effect, the Kliges'chee started running their ships in groups of 8 to 24, deploying these as though they were individual ships, trying for area coverage, but at the same time to preserve their numerical advantages. When this was successful, two or more groups might catch a Federation battle group of 6 to 10 ships and engage them in close battle. This was not in the Federation's favor, so Starfleet engaged the enemy carefully, usually only when conditions where in their favor. The Federation also had the advantages of Subspace telescopes and fast computers. They could see, dimly, though the curtain of interference the Kliges'chee put up, and they could see Kliges'chee ships at a distance despite their stealth suites when they were lucky. One ship, a battered and altered old Miranda class played a disproportionate role in the war. The USS Oberon had been altered by Milo Bradley and Lt. Commander Jeffery Jones into a mobile subspace telescope. From well outside the battle zone, the Oberon spotted Kliges'chee ship formations and activities and was able to vector Federation battle groups into engagements with them. The success of the Oberon at this sort of long distance sensing and tracking has made the mobile subspace telescope a high priority for Starfleet to develop into a mature class of ship. From all over known space, Klingons, part Klingons and Klingon wannabe's turned out to take their part in the battle. Mercenary ships, pirate ships, Maquis cells and adventuring groups appeared from all over the known space in response to Kaheless' call. The Klingon Empire was too desperate to turn down anyone who could really perform a function on a functional warship, and so forgave everyone everything, and sent them out on any old tub that could be begged, borrowed or stolen. They died like flies. With out the ability to retreat at speed that a Federation battle group had, once these irregular forces mixed it up with a Kliges'chee formation, it was win or die. All too often it was win, and then die when the Kliges'chee back up caught up with you. The Federation was also up against a personnel problem. As casualties mounted, experienced officers were stripped from the older, slower, second line ships. Many Captains wound up with volunteers aboard filling engineering functions. The young people in Starfleet, the fresh Ensigns and Lt's j.g rose to the challenges of this time admirably, serving in positions well beyond their seniority and inventing new, non-linear solutions to pressing problems. Starfleet officers also proved their adaptability. Security, marine and ground forces were not well used in this conflict, due to the environmental differences. Many started hurried cross training and joined the ranks of engineering or medical staff, keeping the ships and people manning them going. This time is called the Battle of the Line. The Kliges'chee drew a line and held it. The Federation and allied forces tried everything they could think of to break it. It was a fast moving war of engagement and attrition. And it went on-and-on while the Kliges'chee never seemed to run out of ships. Admiral Picard's staff calculated that they needed to destroy 11.2 Kliges'chee ships to every Federation starship lost in battle to over come the Kliges'chee advantage in numbers Federation forces kept up a solid 10.3 to one ratio, never doing much better than this despite heroic efforts. Some very brave and ambitious Klingons and adventurers of other races ducked through The Line under cloak and went on rampages behind enemy lines. But these stints were usually short lived as were the people making them. Although the Kliges'chee lines were horribly long, they were well guarded. This is when the new line of Kliges'chee starships started appearing in battle. Tougher ships, more capable and harder to destroy were an unpleasant and fatal surprise to many. Why did the Kliges'chee stop? The Kliges'chee halted their seeming inexorable advance across the Klingon Empire, and then built up forces behind "the Line" Nations All over known space held their breaths, waiting to see who was next on the Kliges'chee hit list. Then the Kliges'chee surprised everyone with the biggest strategic blunder of the war. They turned in Klingon space and moved to attack the Romulans. Apparently the Kliges'chee Comptrollers had no idea whatever of how long the Romulans and the Klingon had been enemies nor of how bitter this enmity was. The Kliges'chee sent yet another Tsunami of Ships crashing through first, the defenses that the Klingon had layered in depth from the Romulan border, to protect against Romulan Attack, and then crossing the border the Kliges'chee had to fight against massive layered Romulan Defenses, laid against a Klingon attack. The sheer bloody mindedness with which the Kliges'chee pursued this attack was stunning. They never hesitated for a second. In weeks of ferocious battle, Klingon Fleets, Star fortresses and dug in defenses were destroyed at great cost. Then the Kliges'chee crossed the Romulan Border. The Grinder The Federation called the Romulan Star Empire repeatedly, suggesting an Alliance against the Kliges'chee, offering aid, or at the very least offering a non-aggression pact, so each nation's defenses could be free to focus on the Kliges'chee. They were ignored. When Kliges'chee forces crossed the border, Starfleet Intelligence received an ugly shock. The Romulan Star Navy was five times as large as anyone in their right mind thought it was. The Romulans seemingly never ever let go of a ship if it were salvageable. Hulls from the Romulan war era were spotted on the attack with modern engines and weapons. The Romulan Fleet from the monstrous D'Deridex class warbirds, all the way down to Romulan war era light attack ships Uncloaked and attacked the Kliges'chee wave. The fighting was intense. To this day Starfleet Intelligence cannot imagine how the Romulan were able to man all those ships and support them in the field. The Seven Admirals - Romulan High Command turned their fleets over to their best seven Admirals. Their names are well known and their exploits studied all over known space. Svrann was a crusty old woman with a sharp wit, a penetrating intelligence, and an encyclopedic knowledge of space warfare She feinted the Kliges'chee and then end ran them striking deep into the unprotected underbelly of the Kliges'chee attack, disrupting supply lines, destroying ship repair facilities and wreaking havoc. However, as she did so the Kliges'chee comptroller facing her read her attack and did the same to her. Svrann's starbases were destroyed behind her. Her supplies were cut off. Svrann took her fleet across the Klingon border and tried to find support there. The first planet she came to denied her permission fearing that their planet would be exterminated. Svrann moved on and simply stole supplies from other former Klingon outposts. Many believe she had the tacit support of local Klingons. But cut off from serious supply she ran short of need materials. Her ships and crew started to fail. Constant Kliges'chee attack pushed her and pushed her until she was pinned trying to fade back into Romulan territory with a few ships. Torvak arranged his ships in complicated mutually supporting formations and drilled his crews mercilessly until they could fight as teams. Careful Kliges'chee maneuvers and outright kamikaze attacks destroyed his large flag ships, towards the end of his campaign. Groups of smaller ships fighting as teams really took a toll on the Kliges'chee but because the ships were small they needed a lot of support and supplies. Their range wasn't very great. So Torvak's fleets weren't able to prevent the Kliges'chee from slipping into their rear. Torvak died on his command station, directing an elegant but doomed defense. The list goes on and on. Romulan losses were heavy. Some Starfleet intelligence sources claim that this is a good thing. Mobilizing too large a fleet came near to breaking the back of the Romulan economy before the battle was decided, let alone the strain of upgrading and maintaining an unbelievable number of ships. The Romulans fell under the onslaught slowly. Each world taken was a fierce battle; every light year deeper into the Romulan Star Empire was filled with the wreckage of attackers and defenders. But still the Kliges'chee pushed on. Romulus' darkest hour With their fleet all but destroyed, and all trained and experienced navy personnel dead, the Romulans found themselves all but defenseless as the Kliges'chee were within striking distance of the home worlds. Rescue came from an unlikely source. The resistance appeared in the Senate. Only those Senators who were too old to serve (and this was old indeed) or those who were disabled for some reason were left. Commander Tsall was a disgraced Navy officer who undertook the study of the way of Surak, after loosing faith in the Romulan system. He pointed out that The Surakian resistance had access to many disgraced officers, criminals and peasants with illicit educations. Tsall offered the resistance to the senate in exchange for them accepting Spock and the way of Surak as a valid faction in Romulan politics. Tsall's arguments dove tailed nice with the way of D'era. Allowing the Senate to rationalize that they were applying the way of D'era (Roughly natural selection through contest and conflict) to the philosophy of Surak. Then the hard part for Tsall began. He had to convince Ambassador Spock to lead his faction to battle. Spock was initially resistant, until Commander Tsall showed him reports on the fleet movements of the Kliges'chee. Spock appeared on one of the last Romulan War birds, and with his resistance crews, took command of the rag tag remains of the Romulan Starfleet. Spock knew that winning was not possible. So he under took to loose lightly, as little as possible. Spock learned to conduct orderly withdrawals, to attack only when the advantage lay with him, and to fight a hit and run campaign, never engaging the Kliges'chee in direct battle. As Spock laid down the pattern, other Romulans took it up and began to fight a guerilla style of starship combat. Spock was careful never to refer to himself as a commander. He always described himself as offering advice to Romulan Commanders. And to make sure he stayed fully legitimate, he did not contact Starfleet or the Federation for the whole campaign. The Senate let him know it was not interested in Federation contact, advice, diplomacy or help. Despite this, Romulan refugees flooded across the Romulan neutral zone. That portion of Starfleet that working along the Romulan Neutral zone cheerfully took them in and dispersed them among lightly settled planets in the region. The Kliges'chee advance finally halted in earnest. Spreading thin enough to ward off guerilla raids from free Romulan Starships finally drained the momentum out of the Tsunami The tide turns Mean while Starfleet was continuing its campaign break through the Kliges'chee flank. Starfleet crews were almost desperate to have some effect on the war. Their hours and hours of hard flying, bombing Kliges'chee ships and running away, all the death and destruction seemed like it amounted to nothing. Although counselors and Starfleet Public relations people did their best to point out there ever mounting count of destroyed Kliges'chee ships, morale started to fall. Then the Oberon provided its best intelligence to date. The Kliges'chee were growing lax about maintaining their sunseed induced interference, and the range available to sensors and communications began to slowly increase. Oberon was monitoring damaged Kliges'chee ships trying to arrange an attack on the supply lines aiding in their repair, when a damaged ship simply vanished from sight. Analyzing what they saw carefully the crew of the Oberon was convinced they saw some large cloaked ship operating in the area. As they refined their scans, they saw a ship like nothing they'd seen in the Kliges'chee fleet, a spherical main hull 1000 meters wide and three small sub hulls 250 meters wide. Admiral Picard anxious for some concrete victory arranged with General Martok for a distraction. The Klingon/Irregular forces made a push for Zovax 4 Federation forces attacked a long a broad front as if trying to distract from the push at Zovax 4 The Enterprise-E battle group specifically attacked a large formation of Kliges'chee ships that might be in a position to reinforce Zovax 4. But the Endeavor's battle group was the hammer. They rushed towards a group nearby the field of damaged ships and the new mystery ship, but detoured at the last minute to attack the obscure location. Resistance was heavy. Every Kliges'chee battlegroup moved at their maximum possible speed to intercept the Endeavor's battle group. When they arrive in the engagement area, they found even damaged Kliges'chee ships fighting desperately to protect the monster ship. The Monster ship opened fire and damaged several members of the battle group. It was plain that the Endeavor and her escort would have been evenly matched by the monster ship itself, let alone by its escort of Kliges'chee ships. But worse there were being borne down on by several more Kliges'chee battle groups. As the untenable nature of the situation became clear, Katherine Julie Malone evacuated her ship, the Defiant class USS Detroit, and then rammed the monster ship with it, setting it to go into warp as it hit. Malone was beamed off the Detroit at the last minute and the little ship struck the monster ship going warp three. The monster ship was destroyed. All over The Line, Kliges'chee ships suddenly stopped, turned and fled back into the Klingon core areas. All units on the attack had a turkey shoot. The Kliges'chee didn't resist, return fire or try to evade, they just made best speed to the rear. The light at the end of the tunnel The fall of The Line seemed to mark a turning point for the Kliges'chee. They began to retreat on all fronts, Out of Romulan Territory, out of Klingon Territory. No one quite understood why, but they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Some analysts believed that the Kliges'chee were fighting a war of attrition. They didn't have to hold territory gained in the Klingon or Romulan Empires. They knew they could withdraw and rebuild their forces more quickly than the Klingons and Romulans could. In this way, the next Tsunami attack by the Kliges'chee could well take them all the way to Earth. The people on the front lines and the survivors on damaged worlds didn't care about that. As the Kliges'chee pulled back it was time to mourn the dead and rebuild what was destroyed. As the Kliges'chee pulled out, they stopped supporting the Sunseed Disruptions and the sensor and communication interference disappeared. The Cardassians help a lot As soon as the Kliges'chee began their withdrawal, the Cardassian Union quickly stepped in to render aid and support to key Klingon and Romulan worlds near their territory, effectively annexing them. The Federation objected strenuously, but found it didn't have the will to go to war to save the Klingons after they'd started the original fight with the Cardassians. New Ties and alliances were forged between the Cardassian Union and the Romulan Star Empire. Having lost large numbers of trained and competent starship crew and engineers, the Cardassians sent advisors to help Romulus recover from the destruction of the war. Recovery mode As the Kliges'chee drained out of Klingon space as though down a drain, they were followed what was left of the Imperial Klingon Navy and Starfleet. The Federation geared up for the biggest relief effort in history to try and help the Empire recover the planets that had been damaged, as well as helping the Klingon Empire recover their defenses in case the Kliges'chee attacked again. They felt hopelessly behind the curve and scouting missions towards the area of the old Zantree Alliance confirmed this as they were aggressively attacked by Kliges'chee ships. The huge Federation Subspace telescopes at the Argus array and the Midas Array confirmed everyone's worst fears. Huge shipyards in and near the old Zantree area were churning out starships at a rate the Klingon Empire could not match. There was going to be a round two, and there was nothing anyone could really do to stop it. Deus Ex Machina Then one day, observations of the Kliges'chee ship yards showed disorganized activity. Soon all Kliges'chee drones boarded anything that would move and retreated further into Kliges'chee space. Scouting probes went unchallenged. Voyages out to the old Zantree border encountered abandoned Kliges'chee ships, bases and factories. Survivors on bombarded worlds reported an end to Kliges'chee contact. They left. And no one knew why. Until the Starship Discovery labored back across the Klingon Border and the rest of the story was revealed. The Storm coming is the Kliges'chee Tsunami The Kliges'chee Tsunami Campaign is specifically aimed at taking the Romulans out of the ball game. *2375 - massed Kliges'chee forces flood into Klingon space, essentially doing a Blitzkrieg. They sabotage Klingon Communications and then move into the Empire at flank speed, simply drowing seperated, disorganized resistance under a pile of ships. The Klingons fight well individually, but because the Kliges'chee have grabbed the strategic and tactical initiative and out number the Klingons something like 10 to 1, the Klingons aren't able to stop the Tsunami The damage done to the Kliges'chee forces is well in excess of what the Kliges'chee expected, but they also know that time is on their side. They can eat 9 to 1 casualties and then withdraw - the Kliges'chee know their empire and economy is *the size of all the of the rest of known space put together* and can rebuild forces at three time the rate of any individual Pseudo-Entity (The Romulans, The Federation or the Klingons.) So the Kliges'chee know they can invade, be hurled back and be ready for another tsunami style invasion, long before their victims can build siufficient defenses. it may require up to three tsunami attacks but the Kliges'chee are confident (and with every reason) that in the end they will prevail. *2376, the Kliges'chee have advanced 2/3rds of the way across Klingon space, destroying Qo'onoS and several other Klingon Worlds. The Klingon ability to resist the Kliges'chee is destroyed. So the goal of the initial wave is a success. The Kliges'chee Target is the Romulan Star Empire In an amazing mis calculation, the Kliges'chee assume that because individuals don't fight as well as Kliges'chee operating as a single entity, that the Klingons and Romulans would not have fought as much or as well as the Romulans and the Kliges'chee - So the Kliges'chee are going through Klingon Space looking for the Romulan Star Empire to have weaker defenses along their Klingon Frontier. This turns into a major blood bath - More on the Grinder The Klingons have Star Fortresses and dug in defenses for a defense in depth against a Romulan invasion - And the Romulans also have in depth defenses against a Klingon invasion. but the Kliges'che fleet still outnumbers all defenders by a factor of 6 - 8 to 1 So they plunge in anyway The remaining Klingon forces, even reinforced by Romulan Expeditionary forces fall in heavy battle then the real battle of the whole war begins - The Kliges'chee know how to fight Romulans. they know how Romulans think and being geniuses at imitation and adapting alien knowledge for their own uses they have reverse engineered the entire Romulan tactical manual. The Romulan Fleet The Romulans know very well that the Kliges'chee empire Dwarfs the Romulan Empire and have been manaically arranging defenses against just such an attack - No Romulan Ship moth balled has ever been scrapped. Ships from the Romulan War of the 2150s forwards are in hiding. upgraded to the extent the hulls will allow, waiting for crews to come and man them to fight the expected over whelming numbers of Kliges'chee. The Romulans Spend 2375 and 2376 in a military mobilization that no one else in the quandrant who monitors them can believe Starfleet Intelligence writes most of the activity off to a mis information campaign. Free lance Ferengi intelligence gatherers and interprerters point out that any such mobilization would cripple the Romulan economy and make the same judgement. But it's all genuine. The Romulans are perfectly willing to spend themselves into oblivion to keep the Kliges'chee from dominating their space. Along the Klingon/Romulan Frontier there are titanic, epic space battles fought by fleets of a size anyone sane would have called impossible. To man tens of thousands of ships, the Romulans draft every able bodied member of their armed forces. They draft every technologically competent member of local defense militias. Old warriors and cadets are called up and thrown onto ships and into the fray. Galley Slaves - Ramming Speed! The Romulans, as it turns out, have been a market for slaves with technological skills and several reserve ships are manned by slaves controlled by neural impants. The result - consistently narrow losses for the Romulans. There are just too many kliges'chee ships and they know the Romulan Mind just touch too well. Even though the Romulans switch tactics early and often, their fleet structures and support structures can't be changed fast enough. Taking hideous losses, the Kliges'chee systematically cut off and then destroy every Romulan fleet. Warships, supply ships, tenders, and old relics. Everything gets thrown into the fight - and doesn't come back out. When the Kligechee gain superiority in space over a Romulan world they bomb it into the stone age and move on. Every Romulan Admiral gets a fleet and a chance to find Glory. Every Supply Clerk gets to be a Starship officer. every enlisted man gets a crash course in Starship repair and damage control - and they all die. Romulan Central Command is stripped of officers and people, as anyone with a hint of experience goes out to reinforce the fleet - then anyone with training. Then anyone with rudimentary training. The war is eating the one thing Romulus can't rebuild easily. People who know what they are doing in space. Even ship building crews and civil space crews are impressed into the Star Navy and sent out. The Kliges'chee do not get one foot of Romulan space without paying for it in blood. But they pay and keep coming. The Tal Shiar and local security forces are also stripped (The Star Navy makes absolutely certain that the Tal Shair agents get thrown into the grinder with their own people) Civil Authority is also decimated - it's rare for anyone to rise to prominence in the Empire without some military service. Now, as the leaders of their factions, and clans, they must either lead from the front or sacrfice all honor and credibility. Spock Steps Up Finally, bereft of any commanders and senior officers, Surviving Romulan civil officials ask Spock to lead a last defense fleet as the Kliges'chee close in on Romulus itself. Spock leads a faction of rebels and radicals who believe that the Philosophy of Surak and IDIC may well have something for Romulans. Spock steps forward insisting that he is but an advisor. Spock realizes that the Kliges'chee must be near the end of their rope, and organizes a campaign based around drawing out battles and neutralizing the Kliges'chee advantages. It seems that the Kliges'chee may well have a shot at Romulus itself - and are eager to take it. But as the last battle shapes up and refugees flee in whatever is left that can fly - Suddenly the Kliges'chee break and route. they flee pell mell, back through Romulan Space, back into klingon Space and through Klingon space across the order and into the frontier, where no one has eyes that can see them. The Romulan Empire is now largely stripped of military starships, military people, Tal Shiar agents and infrastructure. A Large portion of the empire is in shambles. The End of the Tsunami, Beginning of the Great Game For the Romulans this is the end of the "Kliges'chee Arc" in ST-OM and the beginning of the "Great Game Arc" Uprisings begin among client races almost immediately - the Empire is powerless to stop them with only a small fraction of its military left intact. An immediate and devastating economic depression sets in as the costs of the massive build up and defense fleet get pulled out of the Romulan economy. On Planets throughout the Empire, Tal Shair agents or suspected Tal Shiar agents are assassinated or gunned down. Needing to rebuild their fleet quickly, the Romulans find one manuever they made recently coming back to haunt them severely. The Romulan Empire had a mutual support Treaty with the Cardassian Union - the purpose of this agreement was to feed the Cardassians just enough materiel and technology to keep them resisting the Klingons But now the Romulan Empire is deserpate for ships and people competent to man them. The Cardassians ride up and play white knight. Sort of. Soon, Romulan Ship building and Romulan Engineering are in the hands of the Cardassians. Cardassian "Exchange" officers "advise" new Romulan crews. It sucks, but the Romulans don't have the leverage to fend off this very friendly partial take over. The Cardassians snicker and consider themselves the big winners of the war. Cardassian aid is carefully calculated to be lent at a level to keep the Romulans busy fighting insurrections and uprisings, while Cardassians loot the Romulan technological database and sign a mutual cooperation pact which allows them to take over administration of several Romulan worlds near the Romulan/Cardassian borders. "To free up Romulan forces for peace keeping, of course!" The lack of iron fisted control in the Romulan Empire means it is suddenly possible for Orions and Ferengi "Free traders" to come and go at will. Several Colonies take to looking out for their own interests first and the Empire can leave a message and we'll get back to them. This leads to an influx of galactic culture, and an outflux of refugees. The Federation, respecting the neutral zone does absolutely nothing to discourage refugees. Several "Rihannsu" colonies are set up along the Federation side of the neutral zone, enjoying Federation support, economic strength Starfleet defense and civil freedoms, these Romulans don't want to come back. The Romulan Empire - Realms of Adventure There is considerable espionage and deniable activity occuring throughout the Romulan Sphere of influence at this time. Spock is stuck in an awkward position as a Romulan Elder statesman. Spock must carefully stay neutral in Romulan politics (This is the condition that allows him to stay in the Romulan Empire) and stay cool towards the Federation (This is what guards his credibility for his followers in part) while guiding his follows towards greater logic. Towards the end of this time period when a new generation of Romulan Officers is restless under the control of their Cardassian engineers and advisers a new large scale plot arc starts Who has the Galaxy been seeing, Recently? The "Infection Arc" during this time period, in a partially completed story set ten years after the end of the Discovery's mission, Hailey is called to be a consulting engineer for a Romulan Warbird. Hailey, despite being nearly killed by the irate Cardassians and suspcious Tal Shiar, helps the "Graceful Defender of Halinth" win free of her Cardassian advisors, cope with giant Space amobeas and generally sets a pattern for the Romulan Restoration (Hailey isn't the only such Free lance engineering consultant, but he's a representative case) From here things get vague - I haven't planned in any real detail. if I am writing ST-OM by the time I get here I may well be in my 50s. The Romulans reassert themselves and after a brief sort-of-civil war disentangle themselves from the Cardassians - they are in much better contact with the Federation and especially Vulcan. Influenced by Spock, Vulcan and the Federation, (as well as uncontrolled movement by the Orions, the Ferengi and various other independant agents) the Romulan Star Empire rebounds as something closer in fact than in name to the Romulan Star Republic. While cool and distant towards the Federation at first, the ''Romulan Star Republic will eventually grow warmer and more sympathetic towards the Federation, while the Federation does the same towards the Romulans. In 150 years, relatively free travel and trade will exist between the two powers In 300 years, serious talks about political unification will begin. Unless I think of something else nasty to happen in the mean time. And that's the story of the Romulan End of the Tsunami Star Arcs *List of ST-OM story arcs Category:ST-OM Category:Kliges'chee